Feb 3, 2009

Punctuate this

You know what I find offensive?

That's right - the misplaced comma.

I mean, honestly. If you're going to whack a twelve-metre-long billboard advertising male sniffy-stiffy spray up at the one of the busiest crossroads in Brisbane, you could at least have the courtesy of using correct punctuation.

In this case, Men: "Do It" Longer or Men - "Do It" Longer would be more appropriate. And while we're at it - let's drop those ridiculous quotation marks around the "do it" as well, huh?

If you can't be trusted with the Queen's English, then how the hell are you to be trusted with the flaccid members of Brisbane's impotent?

From a grammatical point of view both the comma or colon could be used. It all depends on how much emphasis you want to put on the word "Men". The more dramatic pause (ie the more important the word before the pause) comes from a colon. A comma denotes a shorter pause.

Let's face it. The last thing men reading this are going to care about is punctuation. Are they? Something also tells me it wasn't one of the more cultured members of our society who was responsible for the whole sad idea in the first place.